Todd Thomas and Shira Smillie

[00:03] SHIRA SMILEY: Hi, my name is Shira Smillie I'm 26 years old. Today's date is April 30, 2023. I'm here in Logan, Utah, with Todd, who is my conversation partner.

[00:14] TODD THOMAS: Hello. My name is Todd Thomas. I am 61 years old, and today's date is April 30, 2023. We're in Logan, Utah, and I'm happy to be visiting with my new friend.

[00:29] SHIRA SMILEY: Hi, Todd.

[00:30] TODD THOMAS: Hi there.

[00:31] SHIRA SMILEY: So can you tell me a little bit about yourself, your family, your job, your hobbies?

[00:36] TODD THOMAS: Like I said, my name is Todd Thomas. I was born and raised just up the road here from Logan in Preston, Idaho, about 30 miles north. Lived there my entire life. Other than going off to college. I did serve a two year church mission for the Mormon church in Japan and then came back, finished school onto grad school in Texas, and I work as a physical therapist at the Franklin County Medical center in Preston. I've worked other places as a PT, Idaho Falls, Idaho, Charleston, west Virginia, for ten years and then got homesick and came back to Idaho. I'm the youngest of three boys in a farming family, grew up on a wheat farm. My parents were Bud and Connie Thomas. My two older brothers are named Craig and Scott. And like I mentioned, I'm the baby of the family. When I talk about hobbies, I'm quite varied, almost a bit oddball. My hobbies range from NASCAR to being a foodie to being surrounded in the evenings with books and music. I started out college as a music major, play saxophone, got to tour Europe with a group and intended on being a studio musician. Well, that didn't pan out. And I'm very happy, though, and lucky that I landed on the career I have as a physical therapist in healthcare.

[02:10] SHIRA SMILEY: Can you tell me about your mission in Japan? What was that like?

[02:13] TODD THOMAS: Yeah, we receive a call to serve, that we don't pick where we go. So you stop college or whatever you're doing, you pay your own way. And I served in Sendai, Japan, if you've heard that name before. If you recall, about twelve years ago, there was a tsunami, earthquake and tsunami in the coastal area of Japan and it wiped out the area that I had served in. I was there in four different towns, learned the language, and was just a fantastic experience, culturally and spiritually.

[02:46] SHIRA SMILEY: Awesome. That sounds wonderful. How long ago was that?

[02:49] TODD THOMAS: That would have been when I was 19 years old. And that was when? 1981 and 1982.

[02:55] SHIRA SMILEY: And have you been back since then?

[02:57] TODD THOMAS: Unfortunately, no.

[02:58] SHIRA SMILEY: No. Have I been able to?

[03:00] TODD THOMAS: No.

[03:01] SHIRA SMILEY: Well, maybe one day.

[03:02] TODD THOMAS: I would hope so. I'm sure it's changed a lot. In 40 years.

[03:05] SHIRA SMILEY: Yeah. So what prompted you to go into physical therapy?

[03:08] TODD THOMAS: Well, I had played a lot of sports growing up, had a couple of injuries like most athletes do, and went through a little bit of rehab. I was always kind of interested in the medical field but wasn't sure if I had what it took to stick through med school. And so where I'd had experience with therapists and trainers as an athlete, then I chose that. One of the first things I thought of is as a PT, I'm not on call and I'm not going out at midnight to deliver a baby.

[03:39] SHIRA SMILEY: Yes.

[03:40] TODD THOMAS: And I would allow me to have a life. And it's not. It's a choice I have not regretted whatsoever.

[03:45] SHIRA SMILEY: Okay. So all is well in the PT world?

[03:49] TODD THOMAS: Yep. I serve primarily where we're a rural area. I work primarily in the home health and hospice area where I go to people's homes. So I'm in their home one on one, a more intimate setting, helping them restore functional mobility and safety in their home so they can stay home. I've done clinic work, I've done nursing homework, inpatient work, but I really like the home health. I can work kind of on my own and just take my time, flexible schedule and spend as much time with the patient as I want.

[04:21] SHIRA SMILEY: So you say you're a PT? Isn't it more ot?

[04:24] TODD THOMAS: There's also occupational therapy and speech therapy.

[04:27] SHIRA SMILEY: Yeah. So you practice all three?

[04:29] TODD THOMAS: Well, no, I'm a physical therapist is what my license is. And we each have different licensure and different scope of practice. But we work together as a rehab team. We each focus on something different.

[04:41] SHIRA SMILEY: Awesome. And I'm a city girl from Philadelphia. You're from Preston, Idaho. So can you fit a picture of where you're from? And what is it like growing up on a wheat farm?

[04:51] TODD THOMAS: Preston's a town of about just a little under 6000.

[04:54] SHIRA SMILEY: Okay.

[04:55] TODD THOMAS: Rural, agriculturally driven economy. Our wheat farm was about 2000 acres north of town. Dry farm, meaning we didn't move pipe, we didn't irrigate a lot of tractor work and of course harvest was huge, but it provided a good living for our family. It was ground that had been in our family for a couple of generations. It no longer is. My parents have long passed away and that farm ground's been sold. But it's a source of most of who Todd is. The lessons I learned at my dad's, hands on the tractor, eating lunch in the dirt together, hunting pheasants together and just being with him. And so I still drive out to that farm. And I'll sit there and just enjoy the quiet and think about my dad and wished I could do one more day of tractor work. Preston is a small community. I am fortunate that I serve on their city council. I'm on my fourth term there, and so that gives me a lot of satisfaction.

[06:02] SHIRA SMILEY: So you're a lawmaker, too, in your spare time? You left that part out.

[06:07] TODD THOMAS: I don't sit still very well, but it gives me an opportunity to serve my hometown and to build a lot of things and be involved with the community. And it's another paycheck, and I don't mean a physical paycheck.

[06:21] SHIRA SMILEY: Okay.

[06:21] TODD THOMAS: I'm lucky because I've got two jobs. One's a physical therapist, one's a city councilman. So I get a paycheck from each that goes in the bank and pays my bills. But each of those jobs gives me another paycheck that is not cashed. It's deposited, and it's never withdrawn. And it's those experiences of working with people and helping them. And I could write a book 800 pages long about those experiences in both those arenas. So I'm lucky.

[06:56] SHIRA SMILEY: That's beautiful. Speaking of books, you have a book here with you?

[06:59] TODD THOMAS: Yes.

[07:00] SHIRA SMILEY: Can you tell me a little bit about it?

[07:01] TODD THOMAS: I brought this just to help cue my own memory.

[07:05] SHIRA SMILEY: What's the name of the book?

[07:06] TODD THOMAS: The book is called the musings of the third son from the first wife.

[07:11] SHIRA SMILEY: Volume one?

[07:12] TODD THOMAS: Volume one. Volume two is in the works. These are a collection of about 50 stories that I've composed and submitted to an organization that then prints it for me in a very nice format. And there are questions that I get, and then I write a story answering the question, or I can make up my own story in submission. Very nostalgic, very sentimental. About my parents, about my brothers, about classmates. Just any experience from growing up. And I did this for my children. I have three, and my grandchildren, which number five is on the way in all. So these are copies for them, primarily so that when Todd is long gone, they remember grandpa and dad. I started this about a year and a half ago. I went through quite an event in my life where I had triple bypass heart surgery. So I don't know if it was a reminder of mortality, but when I kind of got over that, I started writing because it seemed like I had a renewed energy and a clarity of mind that I didn't have before, and things just flowed. That has morphed itself into. Now I write a weekly column for several regional newspapers, mostly on nostalgia sentimental memories back in the good old days type of stories that it's published here in Logan in the Herald Journal. They publish it every Tuesday under what they call the bright side. Excuse me, the bright side. I wax political occasionally where I'm in government, but I tend to steer toward the nostalgia and the sentimental part of me, and it's just been a wonderful catharsis healing for me.

[09:05] SHIRA SMILEY: Would you like to share a story or an excerpt?

[09:11] TODD THOMAS: I would. The thing that I primarily thought about the last few days of the story I wanted to share with people is about my mom. And so going back to 1992 is when I moved from Idaho to West Virginia to take a job there. Had two small children. And so we made the cross country drive to Charleston, West Virginia, said goodbye to all of our family, including my mom and dad, in the driveway, and off we headed. Approximately two years later, things had changed in West Virginia for me. We were separated. We were in a pending divorce. And of course, to say the word contentious, that's divorce. And this was no different. So I came home one night, or, no, let me back up. I'm jumping ahead just a little. Mother's day, 94. I had mailed some pictures to my mom of myself and my two children at the time for Mother's Day. And I waited a few days, and I called her from work that day to see if she had received the card and the photos. Well, she had. And I anticipated a scolding because when I pulled out of that driveway two years earlier, I was a brand new Brigham young university graduate. Short hair. In those two years time, a lot of change had happened in me. My hair was now down to my shoulders. I had a full beard, and I had changed my outlook a lot of, and for good or bad. So she had seen those pictures. She knew what was going on in my life, and she had been my phone call, my vent recipient, my cheerleader, through all of this divorce stuff. And so she knew I was in a dark place, as most people are when they get divorced. So I was anxious to see what she thought of the photos, what she thought of Derek and Courtney, my son and daughter, who were just little. Well, she wasn't happy. And so mama Bear really scolded baby bear for my appearance. You know, you gotta remember coming from a very conservative hometown where you didn't grow your hair out, you didn't wear facial hair. And there I was in all my glory. So she let me have it and she said, I sure hope you don't come home to visit us and walk down main street looking like that, I'd be embarrassed. My dander was up. I was already raw, and I immediately barked back through the phone, well, I guess I won't be coming home then, unless it's for a funeral. And I hung up on her. So that day wore on, the next day wore on, and it was 24 hours of pure guilt on my end. The following night, I came home from work, and my message machine was blinking. So I hit the button, and it's my sister in law's voice saying, todd, please call me as soon as you get this. So I take my coat off, get settled, I call her back. And my first thought was my dad, because he had also had the heart, the cardiac bypass surgeries. So my natural thought was, something's happened to dad. And that's what I asked her. It's dad, isn't it? She paused and said, no, Todd, it's your mom. That was the furthest thing that something would happen to mom. And she then described the events that had happened earlier that day just up the road here from Logan in a little town called Richmond. It's about halfway between Logan and Preston. She was coming home from erin's here in Logan and drifted across the center line and hit another car head on and was fatally injured. My mom was gone, and the last thing I had said to her was, I'm not coming home unless it's for a funeral. And I hung up on her. So I described that event to Dorothy, and, of course, she was very taken back with that. And as is common in our culture, in our religion here, she basically gave me those cliches of, it's okay, Todd. You know that you're going to see her again, and you'll get to make it right. What else could she say? So things progressed, made arrangements, came home for everything, and it was the worst time of my life. This was far more painful than what I was going through with the marriage ending. So I was really struggling, and I was at the lowest point I've ever been in my life. And so while I was home, of course, we take care of the viewing and the funeral and all those things. A particular friend of my mom's came through the viewing line, and she pulled me aside and said, todd, I talked to your mom that morning, and she told me about your phone call and that her plan was, when she got home that day from running errands and loganhouse, she was going to wait for you to be home from work and call you and set things right. But she never made it home. And so that helped me for her to tell me that. The next day, I went up to the location where they had towed mom's truck and asked them if I could look through it. And these are employees that knew me. They knew what had happened. They said, absolutely, take all the time you want. So I went out and dug through her truck and looking for things and just surveying on the bench seat right next to where she was sitting were those photographs. So I leaned against the truck and looked at those and realized that I was with my mom. I was sitting right on her right hip, just like I'd probably done as a toddler. I was with her when she died, and that helped. More days go by. I stay and help my dad take care of things. I fly back to West Virginia and resume my life. I was getting custody of my children. So I was a very busy single dad and trying to maintain a job. But I didn't sleep much. And one particular night in my sleep, I had a dream. And this wasn't the ordinary, nonsensical, bizarre, I eat spicy food kind of dream. I call this a vision of sorts, that in this vision, I am standing on the highway up here in Richmond at the very spot where she was killed. And I'm looking at the surroundings, the mountains, the park that's right there. And I turned to my right in this dream, and there stood my mom. And I turned to her, and I said, mom, what happened? Because none of us really knew the details. There was not an autopsy done. There wasn't many witnesses to it. And she looked at me and said, son, I just got so sleepy. I'm so sorry. And then I woke up. I got up, sat on the balcony of my apartment, and processed all of that. And the conclusion that it gave me was that something medical happened, that she lost the ability to control the car. And for some odd reason, that gave me more comfort than not knowing anything. And so I feel like her friends comment to me, me finding those photos, mom coming to me like that, and just one sentence. I just got so sleepy. I'm sorry, son. Started my healing. And in this book that I tap, one of the first stories is about never hanging up on someone. And then I end the volume with the healing begins. The second part of that story, I just told you that the healing began, and it took years. The soul heals as the body heals, but slowly. And there's been a lot of experiences in writing these stories that have helped me continue to heal. I'll probably be healing the rest of my existence. And so one of the first things that will happen when that day comes, that I do see my mom and my dad is, I will apologize to her. She didn't owe me an apology, but I certainly owe one to her. And I'll make it. And so when that day comes, I'm not scared. I got things to do here, but I've got things to do there, too. And so those are the kind of things I write about that I think about. I think they're things worth writing. And I want to continue to live in a way that I have more things to write about. Because, you know, the very famous quote, and I don't recall who it is, is that a mother is a son's first true love.

[19:14] SHIRA SMILEY: Yeah.

[19:15] TODD THOMAS: And a son is his mother's last true love. And that's how I feel about my mom.

[19:24] SHIRA SMILEY: That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.

[19:28] TODD THOMAS: I almost cried.

[19:31] SHIRA SMILEY: That was beautiful. So what inspired you to start writing the book? Was it for your healing?

[19:41] TODD THOMAS: Yeah. The story I just told you, I kind of wrote it clear back then. I sat down one night and kind of put it down on paper, typed it up. But I've kind of changed it and edited it and remembered more things and made a better version of it. And then I put that stuff aside for a long time. But like I mentioned, I had the triple bypass a year and a half ago. I had some downtime for one. But it just seemed like whatever that surgeon did to my heart must have increased the blood flow to my brain. Because it's like my clarity of thought has just been magnified. And things are coming back to me. Memories and stories and experiences. And when I read these to my two older brothers, they're like, we think you're making this stuff up. I don't remember that. And for some reason, my memory is so sharp and so clear that I thought, I've got to get these down. I've always loved reading. I've always loved writing. And so now that kind of started me on this road of writing things the way the newspaper stuff started is during my recovery, I follow the Idaho politics scene a lot. Being in the government and the Idaho legislature that year was trying to pass a bill that I didn't like. So I thought, I'm writing a letter to the editor. And I did to the Idaho state Journal. So I fire that letter off. A couple days later, the editor calls me and of course, they call to verify, is this you? You know, I said, it sure was. And he goes, you know what, Mister Thomas? He said, I like how you write. Would you consider being a weekly opinion columnist for us? And I said, absolutely. And that started that. And it is then spread to the Herald Journal, to the Press, citizen, a newspaper in American Falls, Twin Falls. I mean, I've got five or six regional papers that now pick those columns up. One of them, I write purely about farm memories, and it goes in their farm section. And I call that column. It has its own title, and it's called keeping the wheel in the furrow. Do you know what that means?

[21:54] SHIRA SMILEY: No, tell me.

[21:57] TODD THOMAS: Well, I didn't think a gal from Brooklyn would know. You're Philly. That's right.

[22:01] SHIRA SMILEY: A gal from Philly does not know, but willing to learn.

[22:04] TODD THOMAS: Okay. On the dry farm, when we plow the stubble that we've harvested, we use what's called moldboard plows. They're these big scoops, and there's six of them arranged in a row in tandem. And you plow along at about 3 miles an hour, and it digs into the dirt and churns it over, turns over the stubble. So you'll plant that field in a year. And there's a. There's three wheels on that plow. And the first one, you have to keep it in the ditch of the previous round to keep it lined up. If you get it out of the ditch, when it throws that dirt, it leaves a furrow. It leaves what they call a hog waller, a bathtub. And that's where weeds will grow. So you want it smooth. So you got to keep it lined up in that furrow. And that was the lesson I got from my dad every day. Keep that wheel in the furrow so you pay attention.

[23:00] SHIRA SMILEY: Yeah.

[23:01] TODD THOMAS: So I liken that to a metaphor of sorts, that we need to keep our life's wheel in the furrow. Stay focused on something positive, a goal, a purpose, a value system. And so I remind myself and my kids on whatever we're trying to do, keep the wheel in the furrow, push ahead, push along, because you'll eventually get that field done. And there is no better feeling than finishing up a big field. And you pull off and you look over your shoulder, and it's all clean and weed free and fresh dirt and the smell. And it's that job well done. And in most of my columns, when I am acknowledging somebody and what they did for me, I end it with a stanza saying, thanks, job well done. That's my tagline, and I use that in a lot of my columns and in some of these stories. For example, when I wrote about hanging up on my mom, I ended that story with Todd. Job not well done. So it can go either way.

[24:15] SHIRA SMILEY: Yeah, that's powerful.

[24:17] TODD THOMAS: So that's what I think about. And in my job as a home health therapist, I drive a fair amount around the county, and it gives me a chance to listen to music, which is another one of my loves. I listen to all kinds of music, or I'll get bored with music, and I'll turn to something else. And that's when these thoughts come to me. Something will cop into my mind, and I carry a legal pad in the truck next to me, and I'll stop, and I'll write down a few key words. Something occurred to me today driving down here, and I wrote it down, and it'll be a future column. Yeah.

[24:53] SHIRA SMILEY: That was Toni Morrison, one of my favorite writers. She used to do that, like, whenever she would drive, she always had a pen and paper, and she would, like, fill in her characters that she would write.

[25:03] TODD THOMAS: And I've even got one next to my bed.

[25:05] SHIRA SMILEY: So you stay ready.

[25:06] TODD THOMAS: Something will pop into your head, and if you don't write it down, chances are it'll disappear by morning. And sometimes I'm just writing one word.

[25:15] SHIRA SMILEY: Yeah.

[25:16] TODD THOMAS: Just a key word that'll help me jog the next day to put that out into story form.

[25:22] SHIRA SMILEY: That's dope. I like that you're creative.

[25:24] TODD THOMAS: As I drove down today, I was listening to a song. Believe it or not, this is how wide variety my music is. I was listening to AC DC, and they were jamming, and I was playing air guitar. And there's one particular song where the solo, the guitarist plays one note and kind of holds it out and quivers it. And that one note is what gives you goosebumps out of that whole song, one note. And I wrote that down because where I'm going to go with that is, in our life, sometimes one note, one word, one look makes a difference.

[26:06] SHIRA SMILEY: That's so true. I'm sick right now.

[26:10] TODD THOMAS: I'm gonna take that and expand on it.

[26:13] SHIRA SMILEY: Yeah.

[26:13] TODD THOMAS: So that's where my inspiration comes from.

[26:16] SHIRA SMILEY: This is intense, but in a great way.

[26:18] TODD THOMAS: Yeah.

[26:19] SHIRA SMILEY: So I wanna know. I wanna talk about your mom a little bit. How do you feel like you're most like her.

[26:25] TODD THOMAS: If I was to show you a picture, and there's pictures in this book, we have some physical resemblance. Both my parents were fairly tall. You noticed when I came in, I'm just about six, seven. My dad was about six'one. My mom, for her generation, about five'nine. So, you know, I've got her height. And if I was to pull up my pant legs, you'd see that I have her chicken legs, her frame, and we do look. I look more like her in photographs than I do my dad. And I think my personality is more like my mom's. My mom was heavily involved in community service, in church service, and kind of hyperactive a little bit. So I'm very much like her. And she was very nostalgic, very sentimental, was very much interested in her ancestry, you know, genealogy and family history type things. So I think I get a lot of things from her, both physically and personality.

[27:24] SHIRA SMILEY: What does she look like? Can you paint a picture of her for me?

[27:27] TODD THOMAS: Like I said, about five nine, blue eyes, always wore glasses, kind of light brown hair. I would call her. Describe her as tall and willowy.

[27:39] SHIRA SMILEY: What does Willowy mean?

[27:41] TODD THOMAS: Thin.

[27:42] SHIRA SMILEY: Okay, what's her name?

[27:44] TODD THOMAS: Her name was Connie Jean Smith Thomas.

[27:46] SHIRA SMILEY: Connie Jean Smith Thomas.

[27:48] TODD THOMAS: Born in 1926.

[27:50] SHIRA SMILEY: Oh, wow.

[27:51] TODD THOMAS: Yeah. So she was only 68 when she passed, you know, now she'd be 97.

[27:59] SHIRA SMILEY: Wow. So what's the biggest lesson that you've learned from your mom? I got the one from your dad.

[28:06] TODD THOMAS: Yeah. The keeping the wheel in the pearl.

[28:08] SHIRA SMILEY: Yeah. What's the one from your mom?

[28:10] TODD THOMAS: I can remember so often as a young kid, I would be her date to things like a wedding reception, a viewing, any sort of church function. My mom was very gregarious and social, and out of the three Thomas boys, I'm the most that way. My dad was more reserved. He was at the farm, I mean, twelve hour days. So when he came home, he's not getting dressed up and going to a dang wedding reception. So I was often her date. And so I remember in the car with her, she'd say, now when we get there, be friendly, talk to people, look him in the eye and show some personality, you know, because it will take you places. And I think that's true. It's not hard for me to engage with people, even when I've just met both of you. Today, my family, kids and spouse won't go to the grocery store with me.

[29:08] SHIRA SMILEY: Because you talk too much.

[29:09] TODD THOMAS: Because I talk too much to everybody. And they're like, you know, everybody well, kinda. For good or bad. So that's a lesson I think mom taught me, was to be social, be friendly and get involved.

[29:25] SHIRA SMILEY: Awesome. So what have you learned from your parents that you instilled in your kids or.

[29:31] TODD THOMAS: I've tried to do the same things with them. My children's situation is I have a son and daughter from my first marriage, Derek and Courtney. They're now in their early thirties and off on their own careers and family. And then I have another son from my remarriage, Christopher, who's given me some grandchildren that I adore. And so I've tried to share these stories with all of them. They each have a copy of my book and just in our conversations, and hopefully by my example of how to treat others, how to be involved, how to be positive on how to work. Work first, play second was another lesson both my parents taught me that I've tried to instill with them, but it's a whole different world now to raise children than when I was raised. Social media has changed it. School is different, and I'm glad minor at the age they are, I would really. Excuse me. I think it would be very hard right now to raise children. Yeah, yeah, things have changed.

[30:37] SHIRA SMILEY: TikTok is frying all the kids brains. So volume two, healing. What is healing? What does that. What does healing mean to you?

[30:49] TODD THOMAS: Okay. My perspective on it is I first think of healing in my job. Okay. If you were my patient and you just had a knee replacement, you know, I'd be telling you, among other things, that be patient with this. The body is a miracle, and it heals itself almost with no or little intervention from us. So I say, even if I didn't come to your home, you'd get better, but it would be slower and you might develop some complications. So be patient with your body. It will heal and I'll help you get there. And I think our soul and our psyche also heals, but I think it's even slower. And I think the potential for scarring, you know, you can cut yourself and have a scar. You can have a scar on your soul, and I think it's more prone. Why? I don't know, but I think it's crucial when those injuries happen, like my mom's accident, that we start the healing immediately, in whatever fashion, whether it's your religion, your family, your spouse, anything, that is a productive way to heal, just like we heal our body from illness or injury. I think it can. It's just much slower.

[32:06] SHIRA SMILEY: Yeah. And what would you say to people who maybe feel like they don't know how to heal or where to start for those soul scars or bruises?

[32:19] TODD THOMAS: You know, that's a hard question.

[32:21] SHIRA SMILEY: That's why I asked it.

[32:22] TODD THOMAS: You've given me one I haven't thought of. Now I'm going to have to think about it. But my first thought is, it isn't just a death of someone that makes you grieve. It can be a job loss. It can be breaking up with a gal or guy that you're in love with. Those are episodes of grief, and it means we're missing something we loved. And I think the first step is to realize that we're grieving. It's okay to grieve. It's okay to not be okay. And then I think you have to allow yourself to be introspective and quiet. There's a phrase that's used in this valley called the still, small voice. And it's that inner voice speaking to us, our spiritual voice, giving us guidance. And I think it's important if you're a person that prays, to pray and to ask for that guidance and that calmness, and then shut up and listen, because it will speak. But I think it has its own timeframe timetable. And if you're not open, it's not going to happen. And that's hard for some of us because our pride gets in the way.

[33:40] SHIRA SMILEY: We're human.

[33:41] TODD THOMAS: Yeah. We don't want it to be our fault. We want it to be somebody else that done us wrong. And sometimes it is. But that would be my advice is to be extremely patient with yourself. Allow yourself to grieve and be open to the healing. It's not going to come if you're closed off.

[34:00] SHIRA SMILEY: Yeah. Okay.

[34:03] TODD THOMAS: And you don't have to necessarily go blabber to everybody like I do, but.

[34:09] SHIRA SMILEY: That'S a part of your healing. So you have written volume one. Volume two is on the way.

[34:15] TODD THOMAS: Right.

[34:16] SHIRA SMILEY: What do you want to tell your future lineage generations who will be listening and maybe reading?

[34:22] TODD THOMAS: Right, like closed out volume one. I ended that story. You know, the healing begins. And I said, okay. Now, this volumes had a lot of sad stuff in it. We're done with that. You know, the background. The next volume is going to be fun. It's going to be funny things that happen to grandpa. It's going to be memories of playing ball and my teammates and more uplifting things. That's what will be in volume two. And I'll be putting it out later in the fall when I've got enough to make it worth publishing.

[34:57] SHIRA SMILEY: So this was the hard part. And now volume two was like the fun part.

[35:02] TODD THOMAS: That's what I intend.

[35:03] SHIRA SMILEY: Yeah.

[35:03] TODD THOMAS: I don't know if there'll be a volume three.

[35:05] SHIRA SMILEY: Okay.

[35:06] TODD THOMAS: We'll just see how things compile. You know, by the time that comes, I could be dead or in jail. Who knows?

[35:14] SHIRA SMILEY: I hope not either. Well, thank you so much for coming in to talk to me about healing, about volume one, volume two, life history. And I've learned a lot of important life lessons, so thank you.

[35:27] TODD THOMAS: Well, I hope you don't forget me.

[35:29] SHIRA SMILEY: I will never forget you. And I'm never going to forget your mom, too, because she's right. Personality will get you places. Be yourself. So thank you.

[35:36] TODD THOMAS: Yeah. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share.

[35:39] SHIRA SMILEY: Thank you.